Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė sent Hanukkah greetings to Jews around the world Sunday, saying: “I greet all the Jews of the world on Hanukkah, on the beginning of the holiday of lights. The lighting of the Hanukkah candles symbolizes the victory of the light over darkness. I hope that this is not just a victory, but also an eternal path of hope and light.”
Full text in Lithuanian here.
The Sabbath begins at 3:43 P.M. on Friday, November 26, and concludes at 5:03 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Panevėžys mayor Rytis Račkauskas held a reception for Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yossi Avni-Levy. They spoke about projects taking place in the Lithuanian city and opportunities for cooperation.
“I thank the ambassador and the embassy for their attention to Panevėžys. For many years now we’ve enjoyed intense cooperation between the municipality and the Israeli embassy. I hope and believe our cooperation with our sister-city Ramla and with the embassy will only continue to grow in strength,” Račkauskas said.
The Israeli ambassador met with the Panevėžys Jewish Community and visited Jewish historical and commemoration sites including the former Rabbinate, yeshiva, Jewish high school and the Yavne school following the meeting with the mayor.
Kauno.diena.lt
The tragic events of the Holocaust have left visible marks at the Ninth Fort. During World War II it was turned into one of the largest mass murder sites in Nazi-occupied Lithuania. From 1941 to 1944 Jews from Lithuania and transported here for Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, the Soviet Union and Germany were murdered here.
The mass murder began November 25, 1941 [sic]. That day 2,934 Jews were shot. The newspaper Kauno Diena presents our readers with a text by a former resident of Kaunas living in Germany concerning the blood-curdling events, commemorations of them and her feeling of guilt. Her grandparents’ home was right next to the Ninth Fort and the so-called road of death.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
The Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum is launching two editions of YIVO linguist Zelig Kalmanovich’s diary written in the Vilnius ghetto, in Lithuanian and English, titled Hope Is Stronger than Life. The book will be presented at 5:30 P.M. on Wednesday, November 24, at the Samuel Bak Museum, aka the Tolerance Center, at Naugarduko street no. 10 in Vilnius.
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community is pleased to announce the first-ever appearance by the Lanzheron troupe from Odessa performing “Teza from Our Yard” at the Stairs Galley at Žemaitės street no. 83 in Šiauliai at 3:00 P.M. on Sunday, November 28, the first day of Hanukkah. “Teza” is about life-stories of Jews with a lot of interesting and funny passages with a distinctly Odessan sense of humor. The main character is played by renowned Ukrainian actor Vitaliy Bondarev. Galina Panibratets is the director. The play is in Russian.
Reservations are required and tickets cost 7 euros, or 3.50 euros for seniors, students and children. Please call 841 200 643 or write an email to toma.galerija@gmail.com to register.
Rescuers of Jews have been commemorated in Šarnelė in the Plungė region. A street has been renamed for the Righteous Gentiles, with only one household of rescuers still remaining on that street, that of poet Vytautas Mačernis. Historians say the residents of this village rescued dozens of Jews from the Holocaust.
The stone monument stands on the edge of the village of Šarnelė in front of a house where Jews hid from the Nazis. Descendants of Juozapas and Adolfina Karpauskas say their grandparents provided safe haven for Jews for three and a half years.
Grandson Aleksandras Karpauskas said: “They rescued 16 Jews, and there was another family of 10, the 2 parents and eight children. So that’s 26 people. And usually on such a large farm there would be about four hired hands, so you can just imagine that there were 30 people around you every day.”
Attorney Viktoria Akhmedov who has lived for 20 years in multicultural Israel is happy she’s maintained ties with Lithuania. In her free time the young woman teaches Lithuanian children Hebrew and feels this helps reduce the stress of adaptation for their families and helps them find points of convergence between the two cultures.
Vitorkia believes helping Lithuanian families adapt is in a certain sense her calling. Her own parents moved to Israel to live when she was just 10 and she remembers the difficulties inherent in adapting to a new life. The hardest part at the beginning was communicating in a foreign language.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is pleased to help distribute support and gifts from Germany to the Former Ghetto Prisoners Welfare and Support Fund. Right now we need a little attention to warm the heart of each of our seniors. We invite you to volunteer to be a member of our time so we can deliver these care packages safely and quickly to our seniors. Please send an email to info@lzb.lt if you are able to help. Thank you.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club, an associate member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, held their annual conference and presentation of the past several years’ activities at the Bagel Shop Café in Vilnius on November 21. Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Žakas Gercas moderated the meeting of members of the board, athletes and special guests. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman delivered a welcome speech and noted the significance of the Makabi club for the Lithuanian Jewish Community as an athletic and cultural movement. She invited Makabi members to participate more in Jewish cultural life and holiday celebrations and to celebrate their Jewish roots.
Makabi president Semionas Finkelšteinas presented a report on the club’s activities over the last three years, noting good results from the Maccabee Games in Budapest, the annual Fun Run and continual operation during the global virus panic.
The Sabbath begins at 3:52 P.M. on Friday, November 19, and concludes at 5:10 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Kaunas Jewish Community is pleased to invite you to a concert called “Born in Kaunas, Renowned throughout the World: A Concert in Memory of the Brothers Oskar and Hermann Minkowski” at 6:00 P.M. on Monday, November 22, at the Kaunas State Philharmonic located at E. Ožeškienės street no. 12 in Kaunas.
Actor and director Aleksandras Rubinovas will tell the story of Oskar and Hermann Minkowski.
The concert will feature compositions by Litvaks and contemporary Israeli composers performed by the Vilnius St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra.
If you’d like to attend, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/modjciNNQ1eaixHt7
Rachil Zeidenberg passed away November 19. She was born in 1933. Our deepest condolences to her sister Maja and daughter Roza.
Two snapshots from the International Day for Tolerance event held at the Lithuanian Jewish Community Tuesday. Thank you to everyone who attended, participated, enjoyed the music and celebrated spending time together. Please take a look at “Darna: International Tolerance Day” on youtube:
The Lithuanian Jewish Community has donated a thousand copies of Yitzhak Rudashevski’s Vilnius Ghetto Diary. [Several days ago] the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Athletics hosted a ceremony for the symbolic hand-over with education and athletics minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, former culture minister Kindaugas Kvietkauskas, who translated the book from Yiddish to Lithuanian, and book designer Sigutė Chlebinskaitė participating.
It’s symbolic this is happening in the run-up to Rudashevski’s birthday on December 10, which will be a good opportunity for teachers and students to talk about him and his diary. The book has been included in the Lithuanian language and literature curriculum and Rudashevski is also mentioned in the history curriculum now undergoing revision.
“The simplest matter in embarking upon the path of Holocaust education is literature. It often facilitates better understanding of some of the matters involved than history textbooks can. Anne Frank’s diary is read around the world and is popular, and here in Lithuania we have a similar diary written by an adolescent. My assignment is to donate this book to schools, and it is the job of the education system to say, and there a million Yitzhak Rudashevskis,” Faina Kukliansky said.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is pleased to invite you to attend the ceremony to light the first light of the menorah for Hanukkah, symbolizing the beginning of the eight-day holiday. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 6:00 P.M. on Sunday, November 28, at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community
Shmuel Levin, chairman
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community
Please announce your intention to attend with an email sent to info@lzb.lt, thank you.